NCRI – A group of Iraqi tribal sheikhs and elders organized a gathering this week in support of Iranian dissidents living in Camp Ashraf, near Baghdad.
In a statement issued by the gathering, the tribal leaders condemned the Iraqi government’s unjust siege against the camp, which has been laid at the behest of the Iranian regime for the past two years.
Camp Ashraf is home to about 3,400 members of the main opposition People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK).
The tribal leaders who attended the gathering from the Yathrib region in Iraq’s Salahuddin province said in their statement that the Iranian regime is not content with carrying out criminal acts throughout Iraq, but has actually laid a siege and exerts pressures against Ashraf residents with the help of its proxies in the current Iraqi government.”
The people of Ashraf “are resisting the fascist and criminal regime in Tehran,” the statement added.
It called on the United Nations, Amnesty International and the European Parliament to help lift the siege and stop pressures against the residents of Ashraf.
It also called on the United Nations Security Council to issue a statement ensuring the rights of the residents on the basis of international conventions and to protect them against aggressions.
“We demand that the Iraqi government to end all its pressures, abuses and aggressions against the residents of Ashraf, because they are the Iraqi people’s guests, and are considered to be ‘protected persons’ under international conventions and particularly the Fourth Geneva Convention.”
The statement also called on the UN to dispatch an international force to protect the residents against assaults by the Iraqi government and the Iranian regime’s agents.
“We also call on the US to facilitate the dispatch of international forces to Ashraf to protect the residents,” the statement added.
